The Hows and Whys of Chicago’s Architecture: A Collaboration with WBEZ’s Curious City

Through WBEZ’s Curious City series, people ask all kinds of questions about Chicago. Then we all get to hear the entertaining, surprising and fascinating stories about what made, and continues to make, Chicago the great city that it is.

by Nikki Snodgrass, Media Relations Manager

The Curious City team of editors and producers receives thousands of questions that get submitted by curious Chicagoans. They share them around so that the public can vote on what they’d most like to learn about, and then they collaborate with experts to track down the answers.

Throughout 2014, 2015, and beyond, Jen Masengarb, CAF's encyclopedic Director of Interpretation and Research, has been one of those experts. We were thrilled to have the chance to partner with reporters Chris Bentley and Robert Loerzel, as well as the other Curious City team members, to investigate WBEZ listeners’ architecture-related questions. Jen loves a good history mystery, and she knows a great deal about Chicago’s architectural past and present. Case in point: Jen led the research and writing for the Visual Dictionary and Buildings of Chicago sections of our website.

If you’ve ever wondered about some of Chicago’s biggest architectural mysteries, WBEZ and CAF are on the case. So far, we've investigated these questions: